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Intercultural Teaching
Self-access module 2

USING CONNECTIVE TECHNOLOGIES TO BUILD AND SUSTAIN INTERCULTURAL LANGUAGE LEARNING

© Commonwealth of Australia 2007
This work is copyright. It may be reproduced in whole or in part for study or training purposes subject to the inclusion of an acknowledgment of the source and no commercial usage or sale. Reproduction for purposes other than those indicated above, requires the prior written permission from the Commonwealth. Requests and inquiries concerning reproduction and rights should be addressed to Commonwealth Copyright Administration, Attorney General’s Department, Robert Garran Offices, National Circuit, Barton ACT 2600 or posted at http://www.ag.gov.au/cca. Disclaimer
The views expressed in the publication do not necessarily represent the views of the Australian Government Department of Education, Science and Training. Acknowledgment
This work was funded by the Australian Government Department of Education, Science and Training under the Australian Government Quality Teacher Programme (AGQTP).

USING CONNECTIVE TECHNOLOGIES TO BUILD AND SUSTAIN INTERCULTURAL LANGUAGE LEARNING

Module Overview

This is a self-access learning module.

It is designed as an additional pathway for exploring intercultural language learning for teachers who have participated in ILTLP Phase 1 or 3, or who can access materials from the ILTLP professional learning programme, to work through by themselves or with groups of other teachers. It refers to modules provided as part of Phase 3 of the ILTLP and assumes familiarity with the knowledge and skills gained through participation in the ILTLP. It is not intended as a stand-alone professional learning programme.

All ILTLP professional learning materials can be accessed on the website: www.iltlp.unisa.edu.au/

As a teacher who has participated in Phase 1 or 3, you will appreciate the particular focus that intercultural language teaching brings to the learning of Languages. It is recommended that you work through this module individually, relating it both to the ILTLP materials you have explored already and to your work with your students since your participation in the ILTLP.

You should examine this module quickly to assess whether it meets your needs. It is aimed at teachers who are not familiar with the range of technologies available or ways to access and use them. It is introductory in scope. You may feel comfortable with your knowledge and practice in this area and may wish to concentrate on the relationship between the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) and intercultural language learning.

It is intended that this module can be undertaken a section at a time. You may wish to spend more or less time on a section as you feel you need to, or as your interests and situation require.

Module Objectives

In this module you will
Consider the purposes and particular dimensions of the interaction of an intercultural language learning programme and connective technologies
Explore of the range of technologies that support intercultural language teaching and learning
Evaluate particular examples of ICT enhanced Language programmes from an intercultural language learning perspective.

Intentions of this module The purpose of this module is to encourage you (and your colleagues) to consider the implications of engaging ICTs in your Languages education programmes within the frameworks of the wider purposes of the ILTLP, i.e.: the consideration of the intercultural within the learning of Languages, and extended planning and programming for intercultural language learning.

As you work through this brief module, you will extend your knowledge and skills in the use of ICTs in Languages education programmes, including current practices and examples from The Le@rning Federation and elsewhere. You will learn how to include a range of ICTs and connective technology approaches in your programming.

You will gain knowledge and skills in incorporating the intercultural into such work and learn how to evaluate the purposes and intentions of digital materials from an intercultural perspective.

Structure of this module

There are three organising sections to this module:
1. Consideration of the purposes and particular issues of the interaction of an intercultural language learning programme and connective technologies
2. Exploration of the range of technologies that support intercultural language teaching and learning
3. Evaluation of particular examples of ICT enhanced Language programmes from an intercultural language learning perspective.

Resources required:

A computer connected to the internet.

Copies of:

The National Statement and Plan for Languages Education in Australian Schools 2005- 2008 2005 Canberra MCEETYA
The ILTLP Phase 3 Professional Learning manual: available at: www.iltlp.unisa.edu.au/
Liddicoat, A., Papademetre, L., Scarino, A. & Kohler, M. 2003, Report on intercultural language learning, Canberra: Commonwealth Department of Education, Science and Technology available at http://www.curriculum.edu.au/nalsas/reports/reports02.htm#intercultural

But first let us consider why the intercultural matters in using ICTs to support languages learning.

Connecting with ILTLP Professional Learning Programme and Materials

Why does the intercultural matter when using information and communication technologies (ICTs) to support the learning of Languages?

ICTs are used for communication and for managing and analysing data, artefacts, information and individual creations: they are part of the communication and cultural activities of local and global groups.

Intercultural language learning encourages learners to understand their own languages and cultures in relation to an additional language and culture. Cultural and linguistic communities have incorporated information and communication technologies into every day life and interaction, ICTs are used in intercultural dialogue and negotiation and are important in recognising different points of view.

ICTs can be used by teachers and students to use, communicate in, and create language with intercultural sensitivity and knowledge. Teachers and students can also use ICTs to learn from, engage in, and respond to particular language activities that require an intercultural perspective in analysing and responding to them.

Teachers and students need to consider: the implications of the interactions of technologies, the intercultural and Languages planning and programming that incorporate ICTs in intercultural Language learning in educative, ethical and developmental ways current and projected technologies and practices that will support intercultural language learning evaluating and assessing the appropriateness of digital interactions, materials and websites, and exploring the position of the learners.

Section 1: Consideration of the purposes and particular issues of the interaction of an intercultural language learning programme and connective technologies

Context
Examine the National Statement and Plan for Languages Education in Australian Schools 2005- 2008.

Your school should have a copy of this. You can download a copy from: http://www.mceetya.edu.au/mceetya/default.asp?id=11912 Notice that Page 12 refers briefly to the importance of ICT use in Languages classrooms. Page 15 includes the use of ICTs in its list of actions for Programme Development.

Now, read Resource 1 which follows. This Resource is a brief discussion paper that explores the issues of ensuring that technologies based Languages teaching and learning is structured around the intercultural. It includes a set of questions. After reading Resource 1, make notes in response to the task at the end.

Identify any particular questions or issues that you would like to explore further.

Write these questions/issues down and note what further information, and possible sources of that information, you would require to explore your questions deeply.

Resource 1

The following paper draws heavily on some key sources:

the main theoretical source of information and the seminal work in intercultural language learning is Liddicoat, A. Papademetre, L, Scarino, A & Kohler, M 2003, Report on Intercultural Language Learning, Canberra: Department of Education, Science and Training available at http://www.curriculum.edu.au/nalsas/reports/reports02.htm#intercultural the 5 modules in the ILTLP Professional Learning Programme available at: www.iltlp.unisa.edu.au/ a recent professional learning programme based on the resource, Teaching Languages in the Primary School: Examples from current practice, entitled Teaching Languages in the Primary School: A train-the trainer professional learning programme (Commonwealth of Australia 2006) and available at : http://www.asiaeducation.edu.au/doc/teachinglanguages_primary.doc a practical guide, Getting Started with Intercultural Language Learning - A Resource for Schools (Commonwealth of Australia 2005) available for downloading at: http://www.asiaeducation.edu.au/alplp/outcomes.htm

ICTs and intercultural languages programming

Why bother about ICTs?

The use of technologies in classrooms reshapes assumptions that have underpinned education, including Languages teaching and learning. As the MCEETYA National Statement and Plan for Languages Education in Australian Schools 2005- 2008 (http://www.mceetya.edu.au/mceetya/default.asp?id=11912) recognises, Languages education is not isolated from social, political and economic activity. Society significantly impacts on education and on the worlds of students, their families and their schools. Our society is shaped by: international interdependency and global engagement commitment to values, ethics, responsibilities and cultural sensitivity cultures and economies based on digital communication, information and knowledge increased use of ICT in work, learning and leisure policies to address inequalities.

Teachers who have implemented intercultural language learning programs, including some iltlp phase 1 teachers, have reported that students in particular see the connections between using icts to increase language knowledge and skills and the need for the intercultural. analysing cultural variation and contemporary linguistic and cultural expression involves internet research, text messaging, emailing, the use of video conferencing and digital cameras. and it involves intercultural understanding and communication. students also like connecting as members of a globalized youth culture with peers in other schools and countries. they recognize the need for intercultural connectivity and sensitivity in such exchanges.

How does that connect with the aims of intercultural language learning?

The aims of intercultural language learning have been explained in various ways, including:
At a global level the goals of intercultural language learning are as follows: understanding and valuing all languages and cultures understanding and valuing one’s own language(s) and culture(s) understanding and valuing one’s target language(s) and culture(s) understanding and valuing how to mediate among languages and cultures developing intercultural sensitivity as an ongoing goal.

(Liddicoat, A., Papademetre, L., Scarino, A. & Kohler, M. 2003, Report on intercultural language learning, p.46. Canberra: Commonwealth Department of Education, Science and Training)

These ‘goals’ should be manifest in digital and technological connections, research activities, conversations and interactions. They are relevant to using ICTs in teaching and learning and their development and progression among students can be enhanced by using ICTs.

An issue of student initiated mode of interacting

In an intercultural language learning approach, students are required to reflect on the knowledge and assumptions they make about their own cultures as well as of those of the target language. They also reflect on the ways that languages embody cultures and manifest culturally significant attitudes and behaviours. Intercultural language learning requires and enables greater student participation in the direction the learning takes as well as in advising on its content and processes.

ICTs provide students with a means and a motivation to support such engagement in the learning. Communication, data gathering and analysis, recording information and research, and other digitally based learning activities need to be informed by, and responsive to, an intercultural approach. Students need to understand the intercultural if they are to develop critical analysis capabilities in engaging with internet based information and interactions

How can we ensure that technologically enabled ‘dialogues’ reflect the intentions of the intercultural?

ICTs provide many opportunities for students to engage in real and virtual ‘dialogues’ through email, telephone, texting, internet blogs and shared lists.

Intercultural language learning…is a dialogue that allows for reaching a common ground for negotiation to take place, and where variable points of view are recognised, mediated and accepted.

(Liddicoat, A., Papademetre, L., Scarino, A. & Kohler, M. 2003, Report on intercultural language learning, p.43. Canberra: Commonwealth Department of Education, Science and Training)

Students can explore ways of ‘recognising, mediating and accepting’ variable points of view and cultural perspectives and the impact of these on Language use and understanding.

Explicit teaching of culture is a central part of language teaching – is the internet a ‘cultural space’? or an ‘intercultural context’? or both?

Technologies provide a variety of ways for students to communicate in another language. Software programs, available as ‘learning objects’ on disk or via the internet provide ways for students to practise their ‘new’ language. The internet provides ways of connecting with ‘native’ speakers and writers of that language. The cultures of both communicators; the student and the ‘native’ speaker/writer; shape the ways they communicate, the communications themselves and the ways the communications are understood.

The ultimate goal of language teaching and learning is to be able to communicate in another language. Cultures shape the way language is structured and the ways in which language is used. We need to start teaching culture at the very beginning of language teaching, because even simple language conveys culture. Whether we think we are teaching culture or not, we are actually providing cultural information in classrooms. Language is not learnt in a cultural vacuum that can be filled in later, rather learners create their own cultural assumptions as they learn. Ignoring culture does not leave a vacant cultural space which can be filled in later. Rather, it leads to a cultural space which is filled by uninformed and unanalysed assumptions.

Cultural knowledge is not something that learners can just pick up. In fact, cultural differences may often go unnoticed by learners until they actually create a problem. If learners are going to develop their cultural knowledge about the target language group, they need to be helped to notice when their culture differs from that of others. This is where language teachers need to use explicit teaching to draw their students’ attention.

(Teaching Languages in the Primary School: A train-the trainer professional learning programme Commonwealth of Australia 2006, Asia Education Foundation, Melbourne)

Using ICTs requires teachers to use ‘explicit teaching’ to draw their students attention to intercultural and linguistic knowledge and dispositions.

Including the digital communicative experience

It is true that we cannot teach everything about culture. Cultures are complex things and they vary from person to person, from group to group, and over time. There is no way to transmit such a complex and dynamic thing in a classroom. What we can do in the classroom is help learners develop ways of finding out more about the culture they are learning by analysing their experiences and developing their awareness.
(Teaching Languages in the Primary School: A train-the trainer professional learning programme Commonwealth of Australia 2006, Asia Education Foundation, Melbourne)

This can be achieved through ‘noticing’, ‘comparing’ and ‘reflecting’ as explained in Module 2 of the ILTLP professional learning materials.

Connecting to the National Statement for Languages Education in Australian Schools

All state, territory and Australian Government Ministers of Education have endorsed the National Statement for languages education in Australian schools 2005 -2008. this statement and plan supports an intercultural language learning approach to Languages education.

It argues that education in a global community brings with it an increasing need to focus on developing inter-cultural understanding. This involves the integration of language, culture and learning. Inter-cultural language learning helps learners to know and understand the world around them, and to understand commonality and difference, global connections and patterns. Learners will view the world, not from a single perspective of their own first language and culture, but from the multiple perspectives gained through the study of second and subsequent languages and cultures. For learners who study their background or heritage language, it provides a strengthened sense of identity.

Interaction

Examine, and think about the following table.

The left hand column describes aspects of the Principles of intercultural language learning. These have been adapted from Report on intercultural language learning.

make notes in the right hand column about the applicability of ict use in languages learning to the intercultural language learning principle. Some suggestions have been made to give you the idea.

Principle
Applicability to ICT use

Active Construction
Pedagogy:
is task orientated includes the use of effective questioning caters to the requirements of individual learners incorporates graphic organisers and other visuals that help to connect understandings encourages a gradual shift from the descriptive to the conceptual highlights particular linguistic and socio-cultural considerations

………………………………………
………………………………………
Software programs provide self managed tasks ………………………………………………….
…………………………………………………………..
Students can search for own interest areas on internet and ‘assess’ intercultural resources.
Digital cameras used to demonstrate learning………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………
Use email to compare idiomatic ‘family’ language across L1 and L2……………………..
…………………………………………………………….
Making connections
Pedagogy:
is designed in line with learners’ development and builds on previous knowledge combines learning of language and culture with the development of cultural understandings across the curriculum encourages learners to explain, integrate and inquire builds connections across texts and contexts

………………………………………..
……………………………………….
………………………………………..
………………………………………..
………………………………………..
……………………………………….
……………………………………….
……………………………………….
……………………………………….
……………………………………….
Sets up a blog in L1 and L2 on interest area ……………………………………………………………..
Social Interaction
Pedagogy:
facilitates interactions that promote intercultural communication builds accuracy, fluency and complexity includes interactive talk as an essential part of all tasks includes scaffolding to extend the intercultural connections individual learners are making involves listening to learners and incorporating their responses into the conversation includes making comparisons across a range of languages, cultures and contexts, using multiple examples (cultures, conceptual systems and sets of values).

………………………………………..
………………………………………..
Teacher establishes text messaging connection with class in another country
…………………………………………
…………………………………………
…………………………………………
…………………………………………
Software program provides individual revision program and feedback …………………………….
…………………………………………………………….
…………………………………………………………….
…………………………………………………………….
…………………………………………………………….
……………………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………………….
……………………………………………………………..
……………………………………………………………..
……………………………………………………………..

Reflection
Pedagogy:
includes reflecting critically on one’s own attitudes, beliefs and values involves conceptualising connections between languages and cultures mediates the processes of developing multiple perspectives on language and culture in all societies and acting in non-judgemental ways highlights comparing, analysing, and synthesising aspects of language and culture from a universally human perspective

………………………………………..
………………………………………..
………………………………………..
………………………………………..
………………………………………..
………………………………………...
………………………………………..
………………………………………..
………………………………………..
………………………………………..
………………………………………..
………………………………………..
………………………………………..
………………………………………..

Responsibility
Pedagogy:
involves setting personal goals and self-monitoring fosters engagement with difference and includes awareness of multiple perspectives investigates ethical uses of knowledge

………………………………………..
Students use Excel program to set up goals and progression points …………………
………………………………………
………………………………………
………………………………………
………………………………………..

Adapted from Liddicoat, Papademetre, Scarino & Kohler 2003.

Section 2: Exploration of the range of technologies that support intercultural language teaching and learning

If you are already on-line, ctrl click (press the control button while at the same time clicking the mouse) the following url. If not, call up an internet browser and type in: http://www.google.com/educators/index.html to go to…

1. Google educator
This how a leading on-line daily teachers newsletter described it. (You can subscribe for free to this newsletter from the ASCD: go to ascd@smartbrief.com )

Google courting teachers with new tech resource
Google for Educators, a new Web launched in late 2006, offers guides and lesson plans detailing creative ways to use Blogger, Google Maps, Google Earth and nine other Google applications in the classroom. The site also offers links to a training academy that will allow teachers to become "Google certified."

Look at the home page you have opened up carefully and work out what tools and terms you are familiar with.

Type your email address in the box in the lower right corner to subscribe to the Google Teacher Newsletter. The newsletters come occasionally and contain helpful information and examples of the ways teachers use the tools and programs described on the page.

Let us try one of the tools:

First go to the Tools page by clicking on ‘Tools for your classroom’ on the left-hand side margin.

Then click on Google Book Search and read the page and the comment by the educator at the bottom of the page. Click on the underlined and interactive Google Book Search at the start of the first para. This will take you to a Google Book Search page. Type ‘Indonesian intercultural’ into the box and click ‘search’.

Click on the black covered book among the selection provided entitled: The intercultural performance reader – page 43 by Patrice Pavis.

Explore page 43 and the pages around it and think about: using this sort of resource in your planning and programming ways that your students might be introduced to this resource, its strengths and limitations, and consider the intercultural argument raised in the document about the use of cultures’ masks in western performance on page 44.

Go back to the ‘Tools for your classroom’ page to explore some other tools.

Google Earth (http://www.earth.google.com) is particularly exciting. Follow the prompts to download Google Earth onto your computer. If you get stuck along the way, why not ask a student to assist? Explore it. Kim Daymond, one of the ILTLP Phase 1 teachers has a television connected to a computer with Google Earth open all the time. When students ask about a place in their Indonesian studies, she says, ‘let’s take a look’ and types in the destination (say Borobudur) and the earth spins round and settles on it. Try it. You really feel like you are travelling!

Why not explore Blogger? Take the explanatory tour. Consider the intercultural issues that could be explored if you and your students set up ‘blogs’ or explored the ‘blogs’ on the internet, about or in the Language (and culture) you are teaching.

2. Thinking about other forms of digital technologies…

Examine Resource 2: the Table explaining uses of ICT in Languages classrooms.

This Resource is from a useful and recently published booklet: Teaching Languages in the Primary School, Examples from current practice

There should be a copy of this resource in your school or university library. A digital copy is available from: http://www.asiaeducation.edu.au/pdf/teachinglanguages.pdf There is a section in this book on using ICT in interculturally sensitive ways in primary classrooms. It is worth reading and starts on page 22.

Examine Resource 2 on the next page either in print or digital form.

Resource 2
From Teaching Languages in the Primary School, Examples from current practice (pp. 31 & 32).

You will notice that this table lists Applications (software programs, internet processes, games, etc) and relates these to particular Language Learning Processes (building skills, accessing ideas and information, extending ideas, creating and transforming ideas, and sharing ideas). The last column examines the particular opportunities these uses of ICT provide for Languages learning.

Google Educator provides most of the ICT programs referred to on this table. Use Google Educator to help you understand any of the terminology in this table that you don’t understand.

Think about your teaching. Which of these applications are you currently using? Which ones would you like to use? Which ones do you need to explore?

Do some thinking and research about digital technologies beyond computers that would enhance Language teaching and learning. Make a list. It might include:
DVDs
Digital cameras and video recorders
Mobile phones iPods and other digital sound recorders and players
….
….

3. Uses of ICTs in ILTLP Classroom based programmes

Go to the ILTLP website: www.iltlp.unisa.edu.au/ Examine the list of Phase 1 teaching programmes and open those that interest you and examine them.

In particular, look at the following programmes that incorporate ICTs in the teachers’ pedagogies and the students’ learning:
Stephanie Andrews Year 9 Chinese programme
Melissa Gould-Drakeley Year 12 Indonesian Programme
Antonella Macchia & Anita Zocchi Year 10/11 Italian programme
Kim Daymond Year 4/5 Indonesian programme

You will be asked to examine and evaluate one of these programmes in the key ideas section that follows. In the interim, read them through to get a sense of the range of technologies used and the purposes that they serve.

Notice, and reflect on, the following:
How Stephanie requires her students to set and use an email service in Chinese at www.yahoo.com.cn
Melissa’s list of technological resources at the start of her programme, and the ways she uses students’ emails in her assessment processes to assess understanding and ability to communicate appropriately according to audience, purpose and context.
That students learning Italian with Antonella and Anita can present their learning by making a DVD.
Kim’s use of a TV in her classroom that is connected to a computer and includes the presentation of scanned material for all to see.

Other teachers’ programmes on the ILTLP website raise further possibilities for using digital technologies.

For example:
Christina Emblem’s Year 2 French programme compares the layout of Toulouse and Adelaide. Consider the ways that Google Earth could be used to enhance this learning.
Cynthia Dodd’s extensive use of monitored websites in her Year 8 Japanese programme could be expanded to include websites that students discover
Nhu Trinh’s creative use of DVD and video recording of her students’ work in her Year 4/5 Chinese programme allows students to reflect on their learning
Lois Cutmore’s use of CD ROM software programmes and websites in the resources made available to her students in her Year 9 French programme enables students to manage aspects of their own learning.

4. Student preferred and initiated technologies

Think about your students. Which are their preferred digital technologies? Take an informal survey and ask them. Ask them which ones would most support learning Languages. Which ones lead to intercultural reflection and interaction?

Do they use podcasts to learn Languages?

Examine this Chinese teaching podcast. It is the fifth most accessed podcast on the internet. Try one of its 15 minute lessons and examine other resources on the homepage. www.chinesepod.com There are podcasts for all major languages. Ask your students to use Google Search to find them. How will you evaluate their usefulness in your intercultural language learning teaching programme?

Now go to: http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/ictineducation/connected/articles/16/inourexperience/index.asp and read Susan Buchanan’s description of use of podcasts and weblogs in her French classroom.

Also visit a site that explains connecting English speaking students to Spanish speaking students using phones in class time: http://www.northtynesidetoday.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=1113&ArticleID=1609800 and for more additional detail… http://www.schoolsnetwork.org.uk/uploads/documents/Jennie%20King%20Presentation%20(NXPowerLite)_124408.ppt Notice that almost no sense of the intercultural is considered in this programme. How could it become a focus?

Who would access and use podcasts and sites such as these?

What intercultural language learning issues do you see in a site like this?
The role of the male and female presenters?
Un-mediated material posted on the blog discussion board?
Others?

What critical understandings and skills do students need to learn so that they can evaluate the interculturality of particular websites they may visit?

Section 3: Evaluation of particular examples of ICT enhanced Language programmes from an intercultural language learning perspective.

In Resource 1 you will have read of the ‘big-picture’ aims of intercultural language learning. These were: understanding and valuing all languages and cultures understanding and valuing one’s own language(s) and culture(s) understanding and valuing one’s target language(s) and culture(s) understanding and valuing how to mediate among languages and cultures developing intercultural sensitivity as an ongoing goal.

(Liddicoat, A., Papademetre, L., Scarino, A. & Kohler, M. 2003, Report on intercultural language learning, p.49. Canberra: Department of Education, Science and Technology)

Handout 2 in Module 4 of the ILTLP professional learning materials, entitled Outcomes of intercultural language learning and communication, available on: www.iltlp.unisa.edu.au/ provides a set of individual outcomes resulting from successful intercultural language learning programmes. Reflect on these as you develop your own internal set of criteria for assessing the worthwhileness of particular programmes, resources and technologies.

The use of digital and connective technologies and software is no different from the use of other resources such as textbooks and authentic materials. What will they contribute to the fulfilment of these aims for our students?

Go to the ILTLP website to examine how teachers in Phase 1 of the project have sought to fulfil these aims, partly through the inclusion of digital technologies and materials.

Go back to the examples of programmes developed by teachers in Phase 1. Select one of the following teachers’ programmes that most interests you or that most relates to your particular work:
Stephanie Andrews Year 9 Chinese programme
Melissa Gould-Drakeley Year 12 Indonesian Programme
Antonella Macchia & Anita Zocchi Year 10/11 Italian programme
Kim Daymond Year 4/5 Indonesian programme

Print off the programme and read it carefully.

Annotate the programme where you think particular goals of intercultural language learning might be achieved. Use the numbers next to each goal to save you time:
1. understanding and valuing all languages and cultures
2. understanding and valuing one’s own language(s) and culture(s)
3. understanding and valuing one’s target language(s) and culture(s)
4. understanding and valuing how to mediate among languages and cultures
5. developing intercultural sensitivity as an ongoing goal.

Numbers 5 needs particular attention as it is the one teachers often ‘allow to happen’ rather than programming for them to be learned.

Apply the same critical attention, using the same set of goals to the following professionally developed materials designed to be incorporated by teachers into their teaching and learning planning and programming.

Select some learning objects from The Le@rning Federation’s Chinese, Japanese and Indonesian catalogue, at: http://www.thelearningfederation.edu.au/tlf2/showMe.asp?nodeID=78#groups Look at these on-line resources with the same critical attention: http://www.curriculum.edu.au/nalsas/c_materials/curr_mat01.htm Now it is time to do your own ‘noticing, comparing and reflection’!

Refresh your understanding of these terms and their purposes by examining Module 2 of the ILTLP Professional Learning Programme available at www.iltlp.unisa.edu.au/

Make a page of notes for yourself in a journal (paper or digital) on what you have noticed, compared and analysed and what you have understood in relation to connective digital technologies and programmes and teaching interculturally.

Suggestions for school- based investigation, inquiry and research

There are many useful investigations that you could undertake in your school about the ways that the use of ICTs in languages teaching and learning supports intercultural language learning.

For example, you might consider adapting one of the following:
Monitoring student email interaction with L2 speakers for interculturality
Changing the focus from teaching the students as ‘a class’, to incorporating ICTs to enable students to individually manage the progression of their learning, including group engagement
Evaluating the incorporation and use of The Le@rning Federation learning objects and/or the Australian Children’s Television Foundation’s Kahootz software in Languages classes
Students’ perceptions of global youth culture and its relationship to languages and technologies.
The extent and range of technologies used in Languages education in your school

Or you might find it helpful to examine what teachers have undertaken and presented in their programmes as part of Phase 1 of the ILTLP.

You can refresh your understandings of the purposes, nature and processes of identifying and undertaking school-based investigations and research by reading Module 5 of the ILTLP Professional Learning Programme www.iltlp.unisa.edu.au

Note in particular in that module the importance of the context (which may include ICT connectivity) of your investigation and the ways that intercultural language learning might change your teaching and learning practice, planning and assessment, and the consideration of the inclusion of technologies on: students’ perceptions of language(s), culture(s), how they interact, how they understand themselves what you do in the classroom who/what else might be affected how an investigative stance helps you make/manage these changes.

Further reading/ references

Getting Started with Intercultural Language Learning - A Resource for Schools, Department of Education, Science and Training, 2005, available for downloading at: http://www.asiaeducation.edu.au/alplp/pdf/alplp.pdf Teaching Languages in the Primary School: A train-the trainer professional learning programme ( Commonwealth of Australia 2006) available for downloading at http://www.asiaeducation.edu.au/alplp/pdf/alplp.pdf

National Statement and Plan for Languages Education in Australian Schools 2005–2008 (MCEETYA) http://www.mceetya.edu.au/mceetya/default.asp?id=11912

‘National Asian Languages and Studies in Australian Schools Strategy’ (NALSAS) http://www.curriculum.edu.au/nalsas

The Final Report on the Development of Standards for Teachers of Indonesian Project http://www.dest.gov.au/sectors/school_education/publications_resources/profiles/indonesian_standards.htm Report on Intercultural Languages Learning http://www.curriculum.edu.au/nalsas/reports/reports02.htm#intercultural

Center for Applied Linguistics: Early Foreign Language Learning (US) http://www.cal.org/earlylang Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition (CARLA)http://www.carla.umn.edu/index.html

National Centre for Languages (UK) http://www.cilt.org.uk

Assessment for Learning (Curriculum Corporation) http://cms.curriculum.edu.au/assessment

‘Linking languages and literacy’ (NALSAS brochure) http://www.curriculum.edu.au/nalsas/pdf/link_lang_lit.pdf

The Le@rning Federation (Curriculum Corporation and education.au) http://www.thelearningfederation.edu.au/tlf2 National Advisory Centre on Early Language Learning (United Kingdom) http://www.nacell.org.uk/index.htm Ñandutí – a resource on foreign language learning in Years K–8. (USA) http://www.cal.org/earlylang ‘Guiding principles for success in educating boys’ (DEST) http://www.dest.gov.au/sectors/school_education/ policy_initiatives_reviews/key_issues/boys_education/guiding_principles_in_educating_boys.htm#Introduction

‘Bibliography of Resources on bi-lingualism’ (National Centre for English Language Teaching and Research (NCELTR) at Macquarie University http://www.nceltr.mq.edu.au/resources/bilingualism.html Research Centre for Languages and Culture Education (University of South Australia) http://www.unisa.edu.au/rclce Research Unit for Multilingualism and Cross-Cultural Communication (University of Melbourne) http://www.rumaccc.unimelb.edu.au

Exemplar(s)

The following sites containing examples of Languages programmes/units on the internet are referred to during the course of the module:

The ILTLP website with detailed examples of teacher programming and teaching units: www.iltlp.unisa.edu.au/

The Le@rning Federation materials for Languages http://www.thelearningfederation.edu.au/tlf2/showMe.asp?nodeID=78#groups On-line Asian Languages materials http://www.curriculum.edu.au/nalsas/c_materials/curr_mat01.htm

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